I don’t know what it is about internet meme’s that I find so intriguing. Maybe the validation I get from them that seem to say, “yes the internet is real, it is a living document and yes you too are a part of it.” Not so much in the way that I need to belong to something, but more so in the manner that I can’t help but belong to it, whether I like it or not. Meme’s remind me that as hard as some of us try not to, that we are all just similar code lines in complex programing.

During the months that I walked to work I cut it pretty close to missing the ferry on a few occasions. Walking in the dark early hours I passed a handful of other walkers, each with their laptop bags, backpacks, and lunch carriers. We are older casings of our former selves. Like kids to school we walked toward the chaotic noise of the city filled with our fellow classmates putting in time for a better grade, higher pay, a faster car, and a second mortgage. Even now the ship’s loud speaker announced our late departure while we wait for an aid car. Johnny got called to the school nurse. The ferry is our bus to school, most prominent in the moments before departure when adults dressed in business attire run, sometimes in an all out sprint to catch the boat before they pull the gangplank away. As soon as the two minute warning is announced we become wild elk spooked by a lioness in the grass. Running with coat tails behind in a panicked flee and wheeled luggage in tow. It’s not every day that you get to see middle aged professionals in an all out sprint, a site usually reserved for natural disasters and acts of terrorism. Before the comedy sets in there is a feeling of uneasiness, I can feel the animal evolutionary psychology telling me to run. Even though I know I’ll make the boat with my long legs allowing me to walk faster than some of their runs, I sometimes join in just for fun. And other times when I don’t give in to my animal instincts, I’ve missed the boat.

These are my artifacts from contemporary living. I wrote an essay once about the contents of my wallet and their correlation to my identity. Today I ponder the same thing. A brown fabric wallet containing a debit card complete with a points reward system to entice me into more spending. A Starbucks Gold card that I bought after going there every day for two weeks with the guys at work. It’s already paid for itself, but the day after I bought it we started going somewhere else. A passenger ferry pass that expires in February. My business card with a stamp of my name and serial number. The eleven dollar rubber stamp is by far the cheapest way to personalize the standard card stock without having to hand write my name on the handful of cards I give out daily. My Washington driver’s license more formally called a Driver License, but commonly referred to as an OL rather than an SID. Two employee ID cards. A ferry vehicle pass which expires in March but will be used up next week. A massage therapy business car with the date of my next appointment. If my coworkers aren’t taking advantage of the twenty free massages a year they’re missing out. My insurance card. An out of dat ferry schedule, one dollar, and a receipt for this sailing.
We used to play the what’s in your wallet game in high school while waiting for food at a coney island or some other greasy spoon dive. It was a way to pass the time and maybe even learn more about ourselves.

I heard this the other day while circling the Olympics on the 101. Broadcasting from a Canadian radio station I figured it was respectively a canadian band. The song no doubt sounds a lot like Cake, which I went through a phase of listening throughout high school. The flowing rap has a a modern feel to it. When I came home the next day the song was still in my head and I looked it up on the reliable you-tube. Since then I’ve listened to it once a day. At work to I started singing the open lyrics, and immediately got a response of disgust. “I hate that song!” and “My boy friend always sings that, I can’t stand it!”
I don’t care, the more I listed to it the more I like it, despite its overwhelming 90s stench, which my wife will attribute to it’s appeal for me. As I write this I hit play for a third time. It’s anti war lyrics, though sophomoric appeal to me, which remind me of this song.

Liesureguy has posted an article about a study on lab rats and the effects of separation from their families in their infancy and its effect on our personalities.

I’ve always been opposed to homeschooling.

I worked with a lot of home schooled and home schoolers in the military. While most of them were good people, I haven’t met one who wasn’t socially awkward and sometimes even debilitating. The last time I talked with one of them we had a long conversation about it where he asked me what I felt he was missing out on. I told him that it was all of the negative things in high school like bullies, test and teacher anxiety, and talking to girls.

According to this report, “found that across repeated sessions of competition, novelty-exposed rats decreased their release of stress hormones into the bloodstream, suggesting that they adapted faster to the stressful situation.” seems to fit right in.

Home schooling is no better a solution to raising our children than is mindlessly dropping them off at school and relying on other people to take of them. The solution lies somewhere in the harmony of active parenting in a community setting.

After a dissapointing season and series finally it’s not until this guy posts a video on Youtube that I get closure. I actually had to go back and listen to assure myself that they weren’t actually singing the words “Battlestar Galacitca”